CEO George Mulhern: The Cloud Helps Cradlepoint and Your Firm Too

Originally Published in The Idaho Statesman, 06/18/2014

Over the past decade, businesses throughout the world have moved to capitalize on cloud computing. For my company, Cradlepoint, this means having a business model that, with the help of cloud computing, has been able to reach thousands of customers with hundreds of thousands of locations throughout the world.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Boise, Cradlepoint is the leading provider of cloud-managed 4G/LTE access, routing and security solutions for the distributed enterprise.
Like a lot of companies, we use cloud-based customer-relationship management software. Buying CRM software as a cloud-based solution has significant advantages. We can access state-of-the-art software built and maintained by world-class experts in CRM. We license and pay only for what we use. We don't have to invest in servers to run the software, people to maintain it or storage to house data. Through a budgeting-friendly fixed monthly cost, we use an application that is far better than anything we could develop for the same cost.

Cradlepoint also develops cloud software solutions. Our customers typically have hundreds or thousands of locations, so our network management platform, NetCloud Manager, enables us to deliver more value than we ever could have if we were selling stand-alone software packages. As our R&D team develops new features and deploys them, they're made instantly available to all of our customers. We develop and maintain only a single instance of the software, so we amortize costs across thousands of customers. This allows us to invest in a lot more computing horsepower and security than any one customer ever could.